Opinions on The Divine Comedy as a casual reader?

By SleepyMeadow8811

I started The Divine Comedy pretty recently too, using the John Ciardi translation, and it’s not really matching up with what I thought it would be after all the stuff it’s inspired in movies and culture. I’m only about 40% into Inferno, but I keep feeling like I’m missing more than I’m getting. Last December I read Paradise Lost and liked it a lot, and I kind of thought that would set me up for Dante: basically biblical fan-fiction for the writer’s own religious views and their issues with politics or religion of the time, plus a bunch of references to the Odyssey, Iliad, and Aeneid, none of which I’ve read. Even without much Greek myth knowledge or really deep history knowledge, I still got a lot out of Paradise Lost just from the story, the religious stuff I do know, and all the notes. But The Divine Comedy has been a lot harder for me to enjoy in the same way. On a basic level I can follow what the notes and translator comments are saying, and I can catch some of the allegory and appreciate some of Dante’s moral and religious ideas when they show up. The big problem is I just don’t know enough about Florentine history and politics, or Greek mythology, to really feel a lot of what’s going on. I can read the annotations and understand it logically, but that’s not the same as actually having it click from my own background or experience. The early parts of Hell felt more engaging to me, but once I got past Dis I’ve felt more and more shut out as Florence and its future keep becoming part of the discussion. I still find it interesting and I do respect it a lot, but I can also tell my lack of knowledge on a lot of the topics is hurting how much I’m enjoying the poem. TL;DR: I’m basically wondering if it’s worth pushing on like this, or if I should pause and come back later after learning more about some of the background stuff (Greek history and mythology, Aristotle’s Ethics and Physics, and the general history of Florence). Also curious what other more casual readers think about The Divine Comedy here.